


like the scent of fresh ink

by doreah



Category: The Handmaid's Tale (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Don’t copy to another site, Femslash February, Flashbacks, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Misogyny, Jealousy, Pre-Canon, Racism, Unreliable Narrator, we all know serena is not a good person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-06 09:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17937125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doreah/pseuds/doreah
Summary: "Who knows, maybe we were there at the same time... Serendipity."[2x06]In fact, Serena and June were at Magnolias at the same time. Only one of them remembers it.Pre-Gilead.





	like the scent of fresh ink

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why I had to do this but this came about in about 3 hours when I was considering all the things Serena appears to know about June's life before Gilead. Are there dossiers on Handmaids that Serena secretly read? Did somebody tell her? Or, perhaps, she remembers.

Fred's late.

 

He's always late these days. It's always some meeting or another with all those good old boys from his alma mater at Boston College. And it's the same, time and time again: he rushes in, apologizes like he only half means it, storms through a diatribe about all the amazing progress they're making in their boy's club projects, and finally looks at you and asks how your day was. At least there's still that. At least he pretends.

 

Is it bitterness, this quiet loathing that ripples through your body when you think about all the conversations that are going on without you? Your contributions come in the stillness of your living room, or around the kitchen table as you serve him dinner. And he always listens, sometimes even makes eager notes about your ideas, your fantasies. But you never get to hear the feedback, not to your face. You don't get to see the approving nods of the men in charge any longer or hear the roar of an angry riot. You never get to see the glint in the eyes of a council of people who fundamentally understand everything you're saying. Just Fred and his chilly blue eyes, sparkling with what once you considered mischief. It seems like something else entirely now. A whisper echoes deep inside you with verses: even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness.

 

The pancakes are always amazing, however. Moist banana flour, with the crunchy bite of California walnuts, sprinkled with fair-trade cocoa nibs. Perhaps you could order something else one of these times, but you're trying to whittle down the daily necessities, to get used to living with less. This won't be around forever. Also, maybe you're just not daring enough to consider trying anything else when the waitress taps her foot impatiently while taking your order. ( _Bitch_.)

 

Everything is just like _always_.

 

Magnolias has a strict _No Laptops_ policy during peak brunch hours, so you've gone back in time to your school days. Your pen scratches across the naked pages of your Moleskine notebook, filling it with idea after idea for your essays, and next book. Loose pages are scattered next to you with passages from Midge Decter, Phyllis Schlafly, Marabel Morgan, Ellen Key, Camille Paglia, and Eliza Lynn Linton. Sometimes you read them back just to reaffirm what you know to be true.

 

You need another cortado if you're going to get through this next chapter's notes. The incompetent waitress is flitting around aimlessly, tossing her long hair and giggling inanely at male patrons for tips, and you attempt to flag her down. It'd be really nice if women could just do their jobs and stop pawing and drooling desperately over every male that comes within 20 feet of them. It's pathetic and makes you all look like heedless sluts.

 

Just as the bobbly-headed idiot makes contact with you, another woman bursts into the cafe, pushing an obnoxiously large baby stroller ahead of her. It immediately distracts the waitress, and a flash of irritation bursts through your blood at being ignored for the sake of this other rude woman who really, when it comes down to it, is no more deserving of attention than you except that she has a baby.

 

It's not that you dislike children. Quite the opposite. (You'd do _anything_ for a baby, in all truth. You and Fred have been trying for years now with only failure to show for it, and the desperation is starting to trickle in.)

 

She is _such_ a typical perky blonde, and husbandless no doubt, with her hair shorter and loosely curled like yours used to be. (No, it's not envy that you can feel creeping across your chest.) She's led right over to the table next to you and makes a show of all her bags. Diaper bag, backpack, purse, lunch bag. The waitress does everything she can to help as she takes the woman's coffee order, including scraping the chairs out of the way so the stroller can be tucked in, almost right beside you. For just a second, you manage to glimpse the child, maybe 3 years old. Mixed race. The mother must be a slut and the father abandoned them both. Probably a drug addict, as so many deadbeat dads are now. You really wish people these days would take their responsibilities for mankind more seriously.

 

Your lips turn to a sneer as she settles herself into a seat, directly in your line of sight at the adjacent table. A wedding band glints off her finger, and you catch yourself—for just a second—regretting your previous callous thoughts. Any guilt you had over your assumptions fades quickly when she rattles off an overly complicated coffee order, dumping an armload of files onto the table as she does. Her baby whines in its stroller but it's as if she can't even hear the cries.

 

Before you can even mutter an “Excuse me,” for the waitress' attention, she's disappeared leaving you without your own coffee order.

 

There's something about midday sun when it filters through these windows; it's soft but bright, and she's sitting right in its path. You allow yourself a moment to watch her, as she's too preoccupied with her own work to notice anybody else. The small pile of notes at your table seems inadequate, _feeble_ actually, next to her stacks upon stacks of typed pages and scrawled notes, each carefully divided into distinct piles. A prickle of discomfort climbs over your skin, and you swallow down what often times has signalled fear. She carelessly knocks a fork to the ground, and the clang makes your ears ring. She just leaves it there, like she doesn't notice, like she can't be bothered to clean up her own mess.

 

Her eyes are such a pale blue in the bright, white sunshine. Intently focused on the plethora of words, devouring them the way everyone else is gorging themselves on the over-priced food. There's something in that gaze that causes a shiver to inch down your lower back, settling deeper within your abdomen somewhere. Meanwhile, her fingers drift over the type, a lightly held pen purposefully streaks through an entire block of text, the scratch of the pointed tip against the paper like a scream. The text bleeds red ink. So much _red_. You can almost smell it. It seems like an act of violence, a stab wound. Or, perhaps, as you witness her calm and grace in the action, more akin to an emergency surgery.

 

Your own gaze wanders away from deft and busy fingers up to where the sun reflects off the paper spread and up onto her chest, to a low-hanging neckline of an over-sized Anthropologie sweater giving you a glimpse of her throat, and more. Two small moles freckle her skin just above her left clavicle, and your breath catches momentarily until you blink away the distraction. For some reason, your pulse is racing faster, but it's easier to blame the caffeine in your drink.

 

A dark shadow passes over you and the dippy pink-haired waitress bounces over with a black coffee and places it down with a smile, one more genuine than she's ever given you and you're here at least once a month. They exchange a few pleasant words, and you've given up hoping for a refill of your own.

 

The woman takes a sip, but the rivers of words are too tempting and without much resistance, they call her back to task. (What an achingly familiar lust.) She scribbles in the margins of the pages as her tongue peeks out, just enough, in concentration and a hot tingle races across your shoulders and up the back of your neck.

 

You lick your own lips, unconsciously, before the end of your own pen ends up between your teeth.

 

Again, the waitress returns and lays a small plate of four colourful macarons next to her. Her hand reaches out immediately for the purple one, her eye never leaving the papers in front of her nor letting the pen drop.

 

“Can I get ya something else?”

 

That damn bimbo waitress's voice breaks through the heavy smog of your mid-morning daydreaming. The sound must surprise both of you because the blonde woman looks up from her work and glances over to you, and you catch her curious gaze for only the most ephemeral of moments. Maybe she smirks, maybe not. Her attention isn't on you; it's just a passing glance like when a stranger brushes past you on the street. Not even a wisp of a lasting impression. You snap at the waitress instead, glaring at the interruption but glad for the fresh coffee at last.

 

She doesn't smile at you the same way as she had done for your neighbour as she takes your order. Her gait is fast as stalks away.

 

The blue scribbles of words stare back at you, but suddenly seem to hold no meaning and your concentration dwindles. This chapter is almost outlined completely but its missing something, a keystone in the argument. It strikes you suddenly how weak it must be then.

 

The baby cries. It starts out as a mewling whine, tiny fists bumping against padded plastic. Too consumed by her reading, the woman does nothing, doesn't even glance up across the table to her child. The blubbering grows louder, grasping for attention, demanding a touch or a smile or even a look. Still, she doesn't engage. Her pen is flying across the pages, slashing and burning forests of lines. It's a massacre dressed as good advice.

 

All the while, her child is yearning for any stale crumb of recognition that her mother is actually there. What sort of monster denies a baby affection? The answer has always been obvious but never had you seen it mere inches from you: A woman too absorbed in her own selfish work and her own pay-cheque. Simply, a woman who has forgotten her proper place in the world. When healthy birth rates have plummeted and young children struggle to even reach kindergarten, here is a working mother, the bane of your existence, taking for granted the precious miracle she has been blessed with.

 

Despite all this, that heat building in your chest and the rapid flutter of your heartbeat haven't managed to wane, not when she's so fervently incising words with such precision.

 

It takes a piercing shriek of "Mommy!" for her to look up, stare at her child and smile. She talks nonsense to it, and the crying ceases for a brief second, before roiling into a repeated yowl. With a frustrated slap of her pen against the table, she stands, squeezes between your table and hers, and lifts the toddler into her arms and onto her lap.

 

“There's a good girl,” she murmurs as the wailing fades but you can tell her interest is stuck in the work, clogged, distracted. You've seen it a million times before. As she sits, she balances her daughter with one arm, but her other hand picks up the mug for a long gulp of what must now be lukewarm coffee, another bite of her cookie, and then picks up the red pen again.

 

A flurry of people swarms the table out of nowhere. You hadn't even heard the jingle of the bell over the front door but here they are, pushing your table aside in their haste. There are greetings and smiles, and it's all very loud, as if they're the only people here, as if they're the only ones who have things to do. You tap your own blue pen against the notebook, trying not to watch but finding the envy (or whatever it truly is) has wrapped too tightly around your chest to allow your own words to flow.

 

The two people joining her are both black, and you don't know which one is her spouse. Maybe she's a dyke. Maybe they wanted a baby that looked like them. You know how the gays do that these days, when all sorts of other couples are trying so hard to do it the natural way. The other woman certainly looks queer and you really wouldn't put it past them. Those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

 

Both her joiners are wearing rings on their fingers; maybe they're together instead; maybe they're _all_ together in one of those disgusting, sinful threesomes that are all the rage amongst the bored, privileged Millennials that attach meangingless labels and lifestyles to themselves to feel special in a sea of equally desperately unfulfilled people. What is so wrong with a traditional marriage these days?

 

The black woman coos over the child, Hannah.

 

 _Hannah, Hannah, Hannah_ , she giggles like the toddler is a dumb dog learning its name for the first time. The blonde passes her kid off like a burden lifted. The man, hovers, waits and grins before planting a long kiss on her mouth. He must be the husband; the baby is his too. They're so fucking in love your lips turns upwards in the smallest sneer at the scene. They have the ease of a couple who has never had to struggle with anything important, never spent years trying to conceive to be left with absolutely nothing, never prayed until her knees ached and throat went dry, never sobbed at night over the scarlet stain of blood in her underwear month after month. She never watched her husband slowly lose interest in what she has to offer. Life has just thrown a baby in their laps, and they seem far more preoccupied with the hipstery brunch menu items than the very real young life gurgling away on the otherside of the table.

 

They all sit, with the child back in the stroller, and they talk loudly, above the volume of everything around them. The mother complains about the chapters she's editing, and how she truly _hates_ orange macarons. Her friend laughs, and barks something about the publishing house and that's the punishment for getting a useless Master's degree in English Lit as she pops an entire cookie into her mouth and talks, with her mouthful of crumbs and meringue spraying bits across the table. Little orange specks of spittle dot the forgotten pages of revisions.

 

They're awful; they're everything wrong with the padded, comfortable society in which you all dwell.

 

Even so, your lingering gaze falls onto her fingers, her hands cradling a cup of coffee, sliding up her arms to her bare clavicle, smooth. _Soft_. Blonde hair bounces off her shoulders. Her entire face lights up when she laughs at her husband's joke, with a wide open smile and her eyes crinkling at the edges. Something makes your fingers tremble and you blame the caffeine, or lack thereof.

 

A fresh cortado is placed down in front of you with a abrupt ceramic jangle and a whiff of the waitress's drugstore perfume as she marches away. Your finger traces the rim of the hot mug, feeling the bitter steam on your palm. Maybe it tampers the subdued fury pulsing hotly through your veins.

 

She gathers her piles of paperwork, carefully organizing them into folders before placing them back into her bag. (You miss the shriek of her pen against draft paper already.) Nobody is paying attention to the child. Their noses are buried in menus, chattering to each other about the eclectic potatoes and the ambrosial avocado toast. It's given you a chance to focus on your own work, finally and you flip over a page, filling it quickly with an angry rant against those who devalue the role of motherhood in modern society through ignorance. How can they be so indifferent to the literal miracle they've been given when people like you—so many millions of people like you all over the planet—would kill for such a gift from God? It's cruel and so _entirely_ selfish.

 

She's completely undeserving of that child. 

 

You take a large swallow of the burning, bitter liquid and exhale slowly, focusing again on your task. The words come out faster with your own pen curling and biting at the pages in front of you. Rage is such a pleasant gift at times like these; it's your only way out, like slipping between the bars of a tiger's cage.

 

Except you can't tell if you're escaping or crawling in.

 

Three pages fill up before you look up again, and you gaze flits over the restaurant before catching her glance at you, and then the scribbles under your hand. Again, it's an indifferent sort of look, like she's curious but not enough to truly care. Dismissive, like she's so much better than you. Maybe there's even the hint of an arrogant smirk.

 

“So sorry I'm late, darling.”

 

Fred's voice roughly breaks through the haze of recriminations that are swarming your mind, and your notebook. He falls heavily into the creaky chair, smacking his briefcase down on the tabletop and rattling the dishes. A dollop of your coffee jumps over the edge of the cup and you stare at it blankly, hiding the irritation like a professional mime or a human doll. It's good practice, you tell yourself. Your husband is very important and wants everyone to know it, except nobody here cares. Not even the rowdy table next to you. He's a nobody to them and there's a very particular way he rolls his shoulders that you've seen before, you've felt it. It's the discomfort of a man who is not the center of attention.

 

He doesn't sound sorry at all, not even a little. There are no kisses for you, barely even a genuine smile passing your way but he's so animated, so gleeful, so beautiful in his righteousness that you can't hold it against him. He's doing this for you, for both of you, and as the church is subject unto Him, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

 

Immediately, he begins talking about Ray Cushing's idea for lobbying a Connecticut Republican congressman to push something extreme yet totally reasonable about the loss of traditional values. It's probably 3 minutes later by the time he catches a breath and looks over the table, taking in your notebook and meal.

 

He gestures to the half-empty plate. “You haven't finished your pancakes.”

 

Without asking, he picks up your fork and carves out a huge piece for himself and smiles tightly at you as he chews on your leftovers. “ _Delicious_.”

 

**.....**

 

_Breathe, breathe._

 

_You're doing so well. Breathe._

 

Naomi is huffing, her angular face scrunched up in make-believe pain as she pretends to feel another contraction. You're stroking her hand, placating her, trying your damnedest to believe she's giving birth even though the parade of Handmaids through the home is just a constant reminder of the truth outside the sitting room walls. There's no blood where you are, no sweat, no shit, no cursing, no tears. But there is an untouched bucket of ice cubes, ripe green grapes, and a plethora of prim, cobalt blue pretense.

 

When you look up, the Handmaid is there, skulking in the shadows, smirking at you until your gazes catch and a wave of familiarity clenches at your chest.How did you not see it before when it's so obvious? It's the same look you've seen once before, in what feels like a lifetime ago.

 

 _She's_ that woman from Magnolias, except now she's dressed in a plain red robe with a white bonnet. She's the Handmaid that lives in your house, the woman that your husband fucks every month as you look on in helpless and bitter agony, holding her down. (Why _are_ the most sinful also the most blessed?) She is the woman who ignored her child and worked too hard for herself, with the loud friends and doting husband, and flashing red pen, slicing words into pieces. You can't look at her, can't see her judgmental, mocking smirk at you and the other Wives in your birthing pantomime, play-acting something you'll never have and she has had already. Something black bubbles up but you swallow, and you try to focus on Naomi instead. Resentment is so natural and commonplace here in Gilead, but it has a new acrid flavour; it feels like rubbing salt in an open wound.

 

_Breathe._

 

Offred was an _it_ before now, not even worthy of consideration of the sinful life that led her to service. Now, begrudgingly, Offred has become a _she_. Her daughter's name was Hannah, she was an editor, she was married. Those are easy facts found in the Handmaid's background files handed to Commanders for their knowledge only, hidden in a drawer or safe, away from you.

 

But Fred doesn't know how she delicately balances a pen between her fingers like a quill when she's absorbed in her reading, that she likes her drip coffee with an extra shot of espresso, black, with raw sugar on the side. He doesn't know the excellence of her penmanship or how the purple macarons are her favourite or the way her cheeks dimple when she smiles at her husband. He hasn't seen her wavy blonde hair, loose, falling around her bare shoulders as the gentle 11 AM sunlight brightens her blue eyes, surrounded by the aroma of roasted coffee and muffins.

 

Your vision dances with angry streaks of red ink, splattered across pages of text. He doesn't know how clever she really is. How much trouble she can cause. How dangerous she is.

 

**.....**

 

Leah oversteps and asks Offred if she'd like a macaron and you can do nothing but follow through, as if you care about her well-being in any way. They're playing a game, like teasing a dog. Wickedness overthroweth the sinner. (She deserves it.)

 

You hear the ghost of her complaints and see her enjoying the purple cookie. 

 

Carefully and with purpose, you stiffly hold out an orange one.

 

 

 

 


End file.
